Typ­i­cal­ly a Welling­ton­ian makes haste for the near­est air­port or road come Queen’s birth­day week­end, but the reverse is start­ing to hap­pen for those of a cre­ative bent as Hand­made hap­pens for the sec­ond year in a row. Hand­made is home to all sorts of mak­ing relat­ed things — from cook­ing to craft­ing they are cov­er­ing all basis at three venues around town, with home base at Te Papa.

My pick for the week­end is hang­ing out at The Hol­land Road Knit Lounge, locat­ed in the Ocea­nia Room all week­end. Of spe­cial note is the Rav­el­ry & Twit­ter Meet Up on Sat­ur­day from 12.30pm – 2.30pm. It’s free to one and all.


Read Auck­lan­der Gem­ma Stew­art’s thoughts on Hand­made after the jump.

It was a cold, wet day and I had spent the bet­ter part of my after­noon under a blan­ket and on the Inter­net. I was on a bad weath­er day mis­sion and I need­ed to trans­form a dress of mine that had seen bet­ter days.

I could have donat­ed it to char­i­ty but I couldn’t part with it. I had visions of turn­ing my out-dat­ed dress into a new and improved McCall’s some­thing-or-oth­er and wow­ing every­one.

I typed ‘hand­made’ into google and was trawl­ing, when my brows­er deliv­ered what could only be a gift from the web-gods onto my screen: The Welling­ton Hand­made Fes­ti­val – and it was on this week­end!

The first thing that caught my eye when I clicked the link was the tex­tured fab­ric-like design and fea­tures, the adorable and very clean lay­out and what looked sus­pi­cious­ly like unique font for the title. I kept dig­ging, flick­ing past the many excit­ing-look­ing class­es on offer and forc­ing myself to stay focused until I found what I was look­ing for.

And then, I saw it. The upcy­cling and refash­ion­ing class which promised to “Give your wardrobe a new lease of life!” That was exact­ly what I need­ed!

While the rain came down, I was cre­at­ing a dream list of all the work­shops I would attend. Jew­ellery mak­ing, cake bak­ing, icing and dec­o­rat­ing class­es, cheese mak­ing (be still my beat­ing heart!), wine tast­ing, under­stand­ing craft beer (hmmm, here’s a list of taxi com­pa­nies, just in case), a curds and cor­dials class… I start­ed draft­ing a lit­tle week­end plan­ner on my sketch­book and was even writ­ing down class­es for a friend of mine (who loves cheese with a pas­sion only seen very rarely) to come along to.

The tick­ets were very well priced: $299 for an entire week­end which includ­ed up to 8 class­es, or $95 for a ‘twice as nice’ pass which includ­ed 2 class­es and 2 lec­tures! I could go and not be broke (and be very well dressed) by the end of it.

There were oth­er options too, so it looked like you could pick and choose to suit what you want­ed to learn; with sin­gle work­shops ($45), dou­ble work­shops ($90) or a 50 minute lec­ture for $10. The whole week­end pass includ­ed a ‘Meet the Mak­ers’ par­ty, but you could even buy tick­ets just to that it you want­ed to.

I had decid­ed that there was no oth­er way that I want­ed to spend my Queen’s Birth­day week­end, and I began to click through to buy a tick­et, when I realised some­thing. I wouldn’t be able to go to this fes­ti­val. No way. It was just not going to hap­pen.
Why? Well, I um… I live in Auck­land. I was (fool­ish­ly) assum­ing that some­thing as amaz­ing as this must be run­ning in Auck­land. Alas, Welling­ton. You have left a girl bro­ken heart­ed (and pos­si­bly broke), as there’s noth­ing for me to do except hop on a plane this week­end and head to Hand­made 2012. Rash? Pos­si­bly. Worth it? Total­ly.
My dress (and I) will thank you for it.